Science: It's a Girl Thing! 3 Years Later...

(Disclaimer: I maybe two or three years late, but this is still an important issue,
so it wouldn't hurt to address it today.)

I was “googl-ing” other science and/or chemistry blogs to
read and I came across this video here:

This video was published by the European Commission for
a campaign designed to attract more women to a career in science. The
commission said that the video had to "speak their language to get their
attention" and that it was intended to be "fun, catchy" and
strike a chord with young people. "I would encourage everyone to have a
look at the wider campaign and the many videos already online of female researchers
talking about their jobs and lives.”The original video was taken down after it
received so many negative comments.

This video is a teaser for a
campaign aimed at girls aged 13-17 years old who might not consider science as
ac career to look into science careers. The campaign had a website and Facebook page showing
profiles of 12 female scientists and their experiences within their career
along with competitions, prize and events. The message of the video was to try and make
science (and chemistry in particular) appeal to girls who are preparing their
choices in A levels which will then take them onto university.

The problem
with this video is that it is trying to get girls to break the stereotype of
“girls don’t study science subjects” by advertising it with an even worse
stereotype. To me the video looks like an advertisement to a fashion show more
than a campaign to encourage girls to pick chemistry over any other subject. The
awful stereotype of pink, makeup and nail varnish is just so garish and distracting
from the main message of the campaign, which explains why the video was removed
quickly after it got a lot of negative comments. Michael Jennings,
spokesperson for the research, innovation and science unit,tweeted:

#sciencegirlthing aims to attract women to science.
Launch video distracting from that. It has gone.

This is the correct thing to do when an advertisement doesn't reflect
the product correctly. Since it has been 3 years since the initiation of this
campaign, I wanted to look at the statistics of the ratios of males and females
studying science subject (results are from the BBC, in the United Kingdom). In 2012
(when the video was released) the percentage of girls studying Biology were 55%
female and 45% male, for Chemistry the percentages were 50% female 50% male and
for Physics only 20% female and 80% male.

BBC News 2012 A level admissions.

(Note: It’s been difficult
to find similar statistics to that of the BBC's of males and females studying science subjects online so please
excuse the fact that I don’t have all the statistics I wanted to complete this
blog post- thank you!)

UCAS released the results, of 2014, that female have actually been
outperforming males in exams and university admissions and they found that
there were 20,000 more males than females entering courses in STEM (science, technology
and engineering and maths). Proving
there is still a large gender gap in science subjects.

Personally I went to a mixed
school and sixth-form and there were only 4 girls in class of roughly 20 studying chemistry and
similar in physics. So there definitely was a big gender gap in the STEM
subjects so it is obvious that there is a need for more campaigns which can give
girls a better insight into science subjects which could encourage them to fill
the gap and initiate a science career.

Why girls don’t chose science at
A Levels

Lack of knowledge of future courses

When your pick your future
subjects it’s important to know that there are a lot of courses you may not
have heard of which might interest you more than the traditional / famous
courses. So make sure you do a good search around courses you like and you
might be surprised.

Teachers treating physics as a male subject

The BBC recently reported that apparently state schools in the UK perceive physics as a subject aimed at males, most physics teachers
are males and so are the students, making it an “Physics sciences are seen as a
make dominated are” Dr Heather Williams (medical physicist working for NS and
Head of Science Grrl). This phenomenon partially blames the fact that there is
not enough “female physicist as role models” which could encourage girls to continue
onto a physics career which could potentially open more career doors for them.

Didn’t like GCSE and/or A levels course

One female student writing in the Guardian felt that
she did not enjoy studying physics at GCSE even though it was not difficult but
she didn’t feel like she could apply to real life and the course did not
thrill her, so she didn’t choose it. She also commented that just because she
didn’t pick physics, doesn’t mean she fits into the stereotype of “girls don’t
pick that kind of subject”, she is entitled to pick whatever she wants without
being judged into a stereotype.

Personal
preference

After all girls are not
statistics and girls can choose what they want despite the stereotypes (how
many times have I said stereotypes in this post??). When it comes to thinking about your own
career, only you can decide what you want to study and build your career in.
With access to the internet being easily available to everyone, you can easily
research the different types of career that are available and make your own
decision based on what appeals to you. If you want to become the next Marie
Curie or the next Coco Chanel it is your choice and nobody should pressurise
you into feeling otherwise; even if there are campaigns to try and inspire you
to choose something different.